Cycle design project.

[Fab Foodie]

I agree with the belt drive/hub gear now being more feasible, take a look at the Trek Soho as i think they are doing a belt drive version this year.

Already done and available.

 

[Arch]

Already done and available.

Indeed, and done often. Chains work, and well. The benefit of belts and shafts is really only a lack of oiliness, and that can be addressed much more easily by having a chain guard, or shock horror, bike clips.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Biomega design some innovative bikes.

http://www.biomega.dk/biomega.aspx

I'm not sure how I'd lock up an MN. There again, if someone nicked it they'd have a problem flogging it.

 

[wafflycat]

That's the thing - with bikes, any new design seems to be tinkering at the edges as opposed to something genuinely new, as they have already been refined, pared back to basics, re-engineered, over-engineered, multitudinous materials used to construct the frames, geometries, wheels number and size of...

 

[montage]

Maybe creat a front wheel drive?

 

[montage]

or two wheel drive

 

[Hilldodger]

or two wheel drive

Been done.

 

[Spinney]

Says the person with the pink helmet!!

Like montage, I harbour a secret desire for a pink bike....soemthing like a Planet X Pro Carbon frame to stand out.

My LBS is quite small. It was the only one in when I needed to buy one....

(sorry - that's the best excuse I could come up with!)

 

[TheDoctor]

Maybe creat a front wheel drive?

Bindun. Pennys, obviously, also Cruz recumbents and a few Mike Burrows designs. I'm planning on building a FWD 'bent over the winter, using one and a half old bikes and a dirty great lever...

 

[wafflycat]

Bindun. Pennys, obviously, also Cruz recumbents and a few Mike Burrows designs. I'm planning on building a FWD 'bent over the winter, using one and a half old bikes and a dirty great lever...

You should speak to MrWC... he has a 'bent frame he got made up for such a project *somewhere* in the depths of the garij..

 

[Fab Foodie]

Last wk in Russia I saw a few brave souls riding straight forward DF single speed bikes, basic brakes and tyres, mudguards, chaibguard. Thinking of this thread I realised that the basic bicycle is pretty much perfect already. Chine, Holland, India, Africa, wherever you go, the basic bicycle pretty much works and well. All the other bits are points for style.

 

[Andy in Sig]

There are already plenty out there and many more have fallen by the wayside. Just too expensive and to large for most folk to keep at home.

Yeah but so's every kind of bike. If he comes up with a brilliant variant, it might be a success.

 

[Piemaster]

Can't help but think a CC cycle designed by the denziens here would end up something along the lines of the car Homer designed on A Simpsons episode

 

[Beardie]

One idea I've had is to create a quick-release wheel system where the derailleur gears and disc brakes stay attached to the dropouts when the wheel is removed. Wheels are thus interchangeable between front and rear (assuming they're the same size). On a small-wheeled bike, this would allow the carriage of a spare wheel, as on motor scooters.

It would need to be compatible with existing dropout designs, to make it easy to retro-fit to existing bikes.

 

[Arch]

I can sort of see the point, but: carry a whole spare wheel, instead of a much lighter and foldable tube, or even just a tiny box containing patches and glue? I'm no weight weenie, but carry a whole spare wheel? If I'm riding 50-60 miles I don't want the load, and if I'm only hopping across town a mile or so, I'd rather walk the bike home than have to carry a spare wheel.

I think a problem might be this: anyone who feels unequal to the task of just changing a tube, or fixing a puncture, is probably going to feel changing a wheel is beyond them as well.

Also of course, you don't need to add disc brakes to the equation. All rim brake designs stay attached to the bike already.